1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical disk apparatus and a method of measuring seek time using it in which the seek time required in shifting an optical head to a desired target track on an optical disk in the optical disk apparatus such as an optical disk drive (ODD) is measured on a screen of a host system using the optical disk apparatus with no use of an auxiliary measurement equipment.
2. Description of the Prior Art.
Generally, in conventional methods of measuring seek time required in shifting an optical head to a desired target track on an optical disk in a device such as an ODD, an electrical signal from the device is applied to a particular measurement equipment for analysis and the seek time is calculated based on the analyzed electrical signal. In such a conventional seek time measuring method, a separate software is required to confirm whether the optical head has been shifted to the desired target track on the optical disk. After the confirmation, the actual seek time must be calculated based on the electrical signal from the device applied to the measurement equipment. In this case, there may be present an error in a hardware of the device for generating the electrical signal. This results in a reduction in the reliability in measuring the seek time. Also, the use of the particular measurement equipment results in an inconvenience in measuring the seek time.
An apparatus for detecting a speed at which the optical head accesses the target track on the optical disk is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,063,545 and shown in a block form in FIG. 1, herein. This access speed detecting apparatus comprises traverse data detection means 100 for detecting traverse data read by the optical head to produce traverse data signals, first speed data forming means 101-103 for detecting deviations in the traverse data signals produced by the traverse data detection means at predetermined time intervals for forming M upper order data bits representing the access speed, tracking error means 104 for producing tracking error data signals, and second speed data forming means 105-107 for detecting deviations in the tracking error data signals produced by the tracking error means for forming N lower order data bits representing the access speed. However, the above-mentioned access speed detecting apparatus does not propose a technique for measuring the seek time required in shifting the optical head to the desired target track on the optical disk.